Healer CDs

This was first mentioned a couple of weeks ago via Twitter by Holinka, and I was hoping to have a bit more information, but alas, this is still all we have. They are looking at removing what they consider to be “redundant” DPS/Healing Cooldowns as part of the overall Warlords of Draenor changes.

Would you gentleman be willing to touch on what abilities, (or types of abilities) you’ve looking at removing in WoD?We’re currently exploring removing CC abilities and redundant DPS/healing cooldowns. (Source)

There was an interesting exchange about Monk Mistweavers and healing on Twitter, with discussions about whether Mistweavers are given an unfair advantage because they are considered melee. Right now, Mistweavers can stand at range, yet won’t be targeted for range abilities by bosses, or they can stand in melee, which tends to have fewer mechanics anyway.

Blizzard also brings up the idea of smart healing and how they believe all healers, not just Mistweavers, are suffering from too much in the way of smart heals.

Here is the entire exchange…

Quick Monk Question, do MW monks count as Melee right now, or will that only be in WoD?Yes, they do. (Source)Any chance of that being extended to other healing specs to avoid an unfair advantage? All healers benefit from being in meleeUnlikely. It’s a perk we give to specs intended to be in melee, not an unfair advantage. (Source)It just feels like something that should be either all healers or none rather than allowing some to ignore mechanics.There are mechanics that they would have to handle that you don’t; a tradeoff for Fistweavers. Just a perk for MW, which is fine. (Source)But MW aren’t required to be in melee to be effective. They could stand at ranged and ignore both melee and ranged mechanicsThat’s why I said “Just a perk for MW, which is fine.” Every difference between classes isn’t an “unfair advantage”. (Source)

The more I think about it, the less it seems like Statue of the Jade Serpent adds any real gameplay value. Thoughts?
It does a bit for Fistweaving, but is fairly passive otherwise. Doesn’t necessarily need to be involved gameplay. (Source)Do you think it would be more interesting with a shorter radius?I think many Mistweavers would say that its radius is already short feeling. But, as a gameplay element to be handled, possibly. (Source)

is it possible that maybe we can see fistweavers being able to dual wield in WoD? It would be really awesome imo Cool look / feel, but that would necessitate all Mistweavers that want to even dabble in Fistweaving to get a second weapon. (Source)Use “way of the monk”? Doable but possibly not worth the effort; WotM never properly balanced for WW, who all DW.Another community misconception. Way of the Monk does balance DW vs 2H for Brewmaster and Windwalker, extremely closely. (Source)

MW relies too much on smart heals. MW would be even better if players would have more direct control.We agree, and think that statement applies to all healers, not just MW. (Source)

Mistweavers definitely seem to have the advantage on many fights (I can’t count the times I enviously looked at Mistweavers as they could stand wherever they wanted on heroic Lei Shen knowing they wouldn’t be targeted for Thunderstruck and could be happily healing while the rest of us ran.

But on this tier, Mistweavers definitely got the short end of the stick. For the last few heroic bosses, no one seemed to bring Mistweavers in for progression, and they were stuck riding the bench (along with the rest of the healing team that heroic Thok required).

Duel wielding would look pretty cool, and they could make fist off-hand weapons for Shamans as well, so it wouldn’t be a strict Mistweaver thing.

Remember the days (oh how we loved you Heroic Sinestra and Heroic Spine of Deathwing) when healers could lovingly dispel their fellow raiders every global? And the much beloved Cleansing Totem? Ever since Blizzard made the change to put a cooldown on dispelling, there have been cries from healers to remove it. While a CD makes sense for PVP, when it comes to PVE, you sometimes have to plan comp around which healers you have to dispel (cough, Horridon). Well, Blizzard has officially said there are no plans to remove the dispel cooldown in Warlords of Draenor 🙁

What do you think about removing the cooldown on dispel in the near future?
Holinka: We don’t plan to remove it. (Source)

When Blizzard announced “The Light Within” tier talent for Holy Paladins at level 100, many people were pretty excited about the idea of being able to place a Beacon of Light on each tank. However, in the current form, if a healer swaps beacon from one person to another, it just overwrites the previous one. But what about when there are two?

Blizzard has confirmed that currently, placing a third Beacon of Light will overwrite the oldest Beacon that was placed on a player. So if you place a Beacon on Tank A, then the second on Tank B, but say you have a third tank or a player soaking damage, and you then place a Beacon on that player, your Tank A (who has the oldest Beacon between Tank A and Tank B) would lose the Beacon.

Quick question. What if I cast beacon of light on someone else with duel BOL talent in WOD? Will the first gone or i may choose?Celastalon: If you BoL when you already have 2 out, it’ll remove it from the older existing one. Somewhat awkward; alternative is two buttons. (Source)

It is an interesting idea to have two buttons, but I doubt it would really be that big of a deal to replace a Beacon if you lose the first. On the other hand, I can definitely see a wipe occuring and a raid leader asking “Why didn’t Tank A have a Beacon?” when he looks at incoming heals prior to a lack of healing death, to which the Pally will go “Uh oh”.

With all the changes with haste and haste breakpoints for Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard answered some questions about how haste will affect Paly’s Eternal Flame and Sacred Shield in WoD.

With all the changes to haste breakpoints in Warlords, will Eternal Flame and Sacred Shield continue to work as on live?Eternal Flame is a HoT like any other, so the changes apply. Sacred Shield is unusual; intend will be the same, may be custom. (Source)

So Eternal Flame will be affected by haste changes, but we could still see some changes made to Sacred Shield before the expansion drops.

Ever since Blizzard announced that there would no longer be any spirit on the majority of healing gear, aside from trinkets and jewelry, many healers have been concerned about what this might mean for healers and their mana regen (eep!)

One of the ideas raised is for haste to affect how quickly mana regens, since the value of spirit definitely varies between the healer classes. Blizzard answered a few more questions about the role of spirit in healer gear for Warlords of Draenor.

What about removing Spirit and let Haste be the main factor of mana regen? Throwing ideas around. @CelestalonSpirit’s value varies significantly between classes. One contributor is what the other secondaries do for regen. (Source)We’re looking at potential changes in that regard, to standardize that better between classes. (Source)

What about Spirit? On clothes? On Jewelry? Some DPS casters are using them on rings/neck at least.No spirit on armor may involve increasing the amount of spirit on non-armor. That makes it more complex to change existing armor. We recognize the problem and are planning potential solutions, but aren’t ready to give specifics yet. (Source)

Wouldn’t increasing the amount of regen spirit gives instead avoid that issue?That may be part of it, but we may change how we itemize non-armor pieces. Just complicates the issue. (Source)
If healers have enough regen with 1-2 spirit pieces in first raid tier, what happens to mana regen later on?“Enough” is a very ethereal concept. It also varies with other gear. And definitely not from 1-2 items in the first tier. (Source)
Then between 3 and 6 (of 7) slots. If item stats triple again, will only need max 2 spirit pieces in final tier. Also, sockets.Sounds like you’re ignoring the fact that “enough” changes between tiers. (Source)

Anyone else a tad bit concerned about the spirit and mana changes for WoD? I remember sucking mana at the start of Pandaria, and at the start of Cataclysm, and praying to the Mana Tide and Hymn of Hope Gods for more mana.

Mastery hasn’t been a very strong stat for holy priests, particularly when there is a lot of overhealing going on (which there usually is, unless a guild is deliberately underhealing a boss). Blizzard answered some questions about the role of mastery for priests and if it is being reworked for WoD.

Any chance on HPriest mastery being relooked at for WoD? Maybe turn all the overheals from it into something?Echo of Light us something we balance assuming it’s going to be more overheal than average. More of regen than healing in design. (Source)

It’s not really a choice when it maths out to be 25% or less of the value of other secondaries in typical 25H.That only sounds accurate when significantly overhealing, and only if your goal is topping the healing meters. (Source)If you’re not overhealing, and your goal is minimizing deaths, mastery can work well. (Source)

And when in the last 3 expacs has there not been significant overhealing most of the time even progression?I’m referring to using more healers than you need. Doing so results in RShams looking weak, and Discs strong. (Source)

Sounds as though it will be another one of those things that will work well earlier in the upcoming expansion, similar to how priests were stronger at the start of this expansion too.

Resto Shamans have a love/hate relationship with mastery. It is great if you are working on progression while also underhealing a fight. But throw a couple disc priests or an extra healer into the mix, and mastery is pretty useless unless things go sideways and the raid is about to die from some mechanic a raid team member screwed up.

Shamans have been hoping for a change to mastery for ages, and it kind of looks as though Blizzard doesn’t have intentions of changing it at this time.

IMO, Deep Healing would be good as a situational/optional talent, but too situational for a masteryDeep Healing is indeed situational. Strong for healing people that need healing. Weak for healing people that don’t. (Source)

Having Deep Healing as a talent would be great, so Shamans could switch it up when the raid is running down a healer or on progression. However, with stats being the way it is next expansion, it would literally require a second set of healing gear – one for mastery and one that will likely be haste and/or crit. However, if mastery continues to be the go-to stat for Elemental Shamans, it could get use as a second spec gear set for Deep Healing and/or Elemental Shaman.

For Mistweaver monks a bit on the hesitant side about the changes in relation to Mistweavers and fistweaving can be rest assured that they will still be considered melee regardless of stance. And it does make sense, as you don’t want to have a mistweaver switching stances and forgetting he or she needs to run in or run out to do it…. I can just imagine all the very unhappy raid leaders when a Mistweaver forgets to run out and gets targeted for something that screws the entire melee.

.Given the changes to Mistweaving/fistweaving you discussed before, will this also change based upon healing stances?Mistweavers will count as melee, regardless of stance. Don’t want them afraid to swap between stances. (Source)

This could change by the time Warlords of Draenor comes around, but this is the current plan.

This is a bit of a change where Blizzard had previously said:

For the new mistweaver stances, will MWs still count as melee in both?Undecided, but leaning toward yes. Don’t want someone Fistweaving to feel like they can’t swap back to Mistweaving in emergency (Source)

Ease of swapping will be nice, when a healer dies or massive damage goes out, you want your Mistweaver to be able to pick up the slack.

Druid’s Glyph of Efflorescence has definitely had their fans this tier, tying their Efflorescence to a specific placement of their mushrooms rather than off of a person. This means Druids can effectively target Efflorescence to a specific place – such as tanks, melee, or range – without worrying that their target has moved somewhere odd (which always seems to happen in LFR!).

Unfortunately, Blizzard is feeling that the healing is on the strong side for what is essentially passive healing, so don’t be surprised to see it tuned down a bit.

– how do you feel the Glyph of Efflo is working? Are we going to see it kept in place for WoD, or should we expect changes?We like the concept. It’s probably too powerful for something so passive, so we may adjust tuning. That goes for all healers in general though; we want to time down passive healing and smart healing across the board. Most healing should come from actives. (Source)

Sounds as though we won’t see a change until the pre-WoD patch or the drop of Warlords though.